Hmm this happened to me today, but purely my fault in my case. For me the exact same thing happens when I try to stack too many (3x!) extension tubes with electronic pass through to certain heavy lenses. No problems with fewer tubes. I think there's a connectivity problem... given that live view isn't even showing anything.

Hmm this happened to me today, but purely my fault in my case. For me the exact same thing happens when I try to stack too many (3x!) extension tubes with electronic pass through to certain heavy lenses. No problems with fewer tubes. I think there's a connectivity problem... given that live view isn't even showing anything.

Click to expand...

Video shoes the aperture value that means lens has some connectivity to the body.

Video shoes the aperture value that means lens has some connectivity to the body.

Click to expand...

Mine shows aperture too, behaviour is identical in that it knows the lens is there, but won't take a photo or try and do anything. The exact setup is E-M1 - 21mm - 16mm - 10mm - PL25, of course not a usable combination (focus is inside the lens). With fewer tubes it doesn't happen.

What seems to trigger it is when the camera stops down the lens, either through DoF preview button or when taking a photo. At that point it goes black and doesn't come back until you power cycle or reattach the lens. It only seems to happen if the camera needs to adjust aperture - if the camera leaves the aperture wide open then it remains normal.

No, I reversed the order and it still happens. Different lenses behave differently too, my Olympus ones (12-40, 9-18, 45) work with all 3 extensions fine, the Panasonics vary from not working at all with more than 1x extension (45-175) or 2x (PL15), to all 3x but flaky (PL25, 12-32). I've managed to trigger the phenomenon with the PL25 and 12-32, but it's way more consistent with the PL25 - the 12-32 only sometimes does it.

I had this issue with my E-M1. First noticed it last summer while on vacation. Intermittent and usually with a few power cycles I could get everything to work again. Then this past Fall it did it again and stayed. Couldn't get it out of that mode. I finally ended up sending it in for repair (in September 2015) and it has worked fine ever since.

But here is the bad news, I STILL haven't installed v4.0 firmware on mine yet, so it isn't a FW version issue.

Specifically mine only did this with lenses that communicated with the body. When the issue happened the screen remained black and the MF (manual focus) indicator showed on the screen. Removing the lens would allow the LCD to show the light hitting the sensor (instead of a black screen). You could then press the little pin on the front of the camera to make it black and then let it go to show light again.

One thing to check is to make sure the little pin is not stuck down. If you take the lens off and the back LCD goes from black to blurry light, then the pin is probably ok.

Also make sure you are not holding down the lens release button when you are putting a lens on and this may allow you to twist the lens slightly past where it is supposed to be and keeps that pin held down (resulting in a black LCD screen). So put the lens on without that button and turn until the lens locks.

In my case it was definitely an issue with lenses that communicate with the body. If I took the lens off the camera it worked (like in the video you linked) but also if I instead mounted an old legacy film lens with an adapter, that also worked perfectly fine. It was only when trying to use a "digital" lens that the issue occurred.

For whatever it is worth, the always vague description on the repair receipt only stated "A COMPLETE REPAIR AND RETURN ALL FUNCTIONS TO FACTORY SPECS" then below lists the generic AF testing, FW upgrade, cleaning and other default stuff. Parts used were listed as FRAME CONTACT MOUNT UNIT and TAPE GRIP BACK. The latter one was just trying to put the rubber grip on the back of the body back in place and they did a poor job of it.